THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:00:10] DON LEMON, CNN HOST: We're following two huge stories tonight. The urgent manhunt in Europe and what the Presidential candidates say they would do to fight terror.

This is CNN TONIGHT, I'm Don Lemon.

The hunt is on tonight for at least one escape suspect in the deadly attacked in Brussels. I'm at fears that there maybe more members of the terror cell on the loose. That gets to say two of the suicide bombers were brothers, both with criminal rap sheets. Turkish authorities say they captured one of the brothers last June and flocked him to Belgium.

So, how would the final five candidates handle the war on terror? Are they putting politics ahead of protecting us?

HUGH HEWITT, HOST, "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW": Hi. Don. I am it's a grim night, but I'm glad to be with you.

LEMON: Both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz came out strong against the Brussels attacks. Let's listen to them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I would say that the egg heads that came up with this international law should turn on their television and watch CNN right now because I'm looking at scenes on CNN right now as I'm speaking to you that are absolutely atrocious and I would be willing to bet when I'm seeing all the bodies lying all over the floor, including young beautiful children laying dead on the floor. I would say if they watch that, maybe, just maybe they'll approve waterboarding and other things.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. And here's Ted Cruz, Hugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TED CRUZ, (R-TX) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's an example where Democrats are more concerned about political correctness than they are about keeping us safe and that's why people are so fed up. We need a commander-in-chief whose priority is keeping the American people safe and that's what I'll do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So what is the line here between national security and discrimination?

HEWITT: Well, there's a front page in "New York Times" story today, Don, on what Brussels did not do over the last 20 years, which was to attempt to integrate neighborhoods that became unto themselves little hot beds of Jihadism to which the 400 Belgium's who've gone up to fight with ISIS 117 of which have come back that they know about they have prepared and have hidden and have nested.

And so, what I think Senator Cruz is speaking to is a proactive policy to prevent that from happening. But I'll say, the other clip you didn't play as of Hillary today and I think she's -- I've got a saying now, every liberal really seems so sad.

That stands for Egypt. That stands for Libya. That stands for the reset button. That stands for Syria. That stands for the status of forces agreement that she blew and mostly of course it stands for the server on which she compromised national security.

So every time the discussion turns terrorism, Ted Cruz goes up. I'm not sure about Donald Trump. The Fox News poll has him falling, but Ted Cruz is serious about this stuff. He'd been saying the same stuff in the political correct approach of Hillary Clinton today did not going to cut it against the back drop of her abysmal record fighting terror.

LEMON: But even Bill Bratton, John Miller who are -- I mean, of course, experts on security and experts on terrorism, I mean, they head up New York City. They both disagree with Ted Cruz.

HEWITT: Well, you know, I would send everyone to read Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower," Jobby Warrick's "Black Flags" which is on the "Rise of ISIS," and Mike Morell, the former Deputy Director of the CIA's "The Great War of Our Time".

I don't know what the commissioner is talking about. He is an expert on domestic policing. But, the volcano that is ISIS and the ideology that gave rise to it that comes out of Wahhabism, which then got nested in al-Qaeda and then spread up and metastasized through ISIS and now into Libya because of Hillary's failure has got a very specific nesting ground in Brussels, in Molenbeek and others neighborhood and I've send your readers to the "New York Times" just an outright wing conservatism. This was the "New York Times" detailing the neighborhood which are no-go-neighborhoods, especially in Belgium but also in France and in England. We can't have those develop in the United States. Locally they haven't develops in the United States. LEMON: The whole idea about no-go-neighborhood when cover at Paris and we talked about that was over blown if not a reality at all.

HEWIIT: Well then you've got an argument with "New York Times," Don, not with me. It's actually detailed at length today in the "New York Times" that the no-go-zones are real, that brothers were living there, the two that are dead, the third, he was on the run. It is the bombers on the dead of the third person with the shopping cart.

Molenbeek is a no-go-zone according to the "New York Times." Now, if you want to come on this network, you can call the "New York Times" bias conservative right wing that's OK.

LEMON: I'm not calling them anything. I'm talking about the reporting for CNN and from our expert here that has been anyways. But, let's move on.

HEWITT: In Brussels it is a problem. Brussels and Belgium is the single biggest problem of no-go zones in Europe, less so than Paris, but very definitely in Brussels and that's where the returning Jihadists are going to.

And like that Ted Cruz speaks to that everyday he will go up and I think the more that Donald Trump addresses it, maybe more calmly.

[23:05:10] I mean, you don't have to go to waterboarding, you have to go to intelligence gathering, that and stuff like that ...

LEMON: The question we have been talking about is integrating neighborhoods and that's what Commissioner Bratton is talking about. That's what our other guests were talking about, the experts that we've had on. The problem to a large extent is the integration of neighborhoods and perhaps if there are anything that resembles a no- go-zone, maybe that is the problem.

HEWITT: Well, here's how I look at it. I'm a right to life Catholic. If I found a right to life Catholic were I thought was verging towards violence, my first call would be to the authorities to say this person is crazy, you got to do something about it.

Muslim-American communities are overwhelmingly patriotic. There are many thousands of Muslim-Americans who serve in the uniform or serving in the uniform right now. They are loyal patriotic Americans and I think we can rely upon them.

I also think that Ted Cruz is right to encourage them in every way possible to give them a support that they need to make sure that they feel safe if they do approach the police that their name won't end up blasted across Jihadist website as happens for example in Gaza where people are summarily executed on suspicion of cooperating with the Israeli authorities or even with the Palestinian authority.

These are real problems, Don. We have to attack them really and get ahead of the Brussels problem or we'll have a Belgium on our hands.

LEMON: So Hugh, no matter who ends up in the White House in January, do you think that the way Americans view immigration has been forever changed by these recent attacks?

HEWITT: No, no, in fact, I had a person on the radio show tonight who is running an effort to bring, especially the Christian refugees who are suffering from genocide.

John Kerry declotted the genocide against the Iraqi Christians last week. I will applaud the secretary of state for doing so.

There are ways to vet people who are fleeing genocide, the Yazidis, the Christians, Shia who are fleeing Sunni killers in ISIS and indeed there are places that they can be appropriately resettled.

I don't think it changes it forever, but I do think caution is the order of the day and that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are talking caution. Hillary Clinton is talking nonsense.

LEMON: Thank you very much, Hugh Hewitt. I appreciate that. See you next time.

HEWITT: All right, Don.

LEMON: Now, I want to bring in Ryan Lizza and Kayleigh McEnany and also Bob Beckel. Hello to all you.

Ryan, you first. President Barack Obama wasted no time today heading back at Senator Ted Cruz that suggestion that police should patrol Muslim neighborhoods. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARCK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance, which by the way the father of Senator Cruz escaped for America, the land of the free. The notion that we would start down that slippery slope makes absolutely no sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So Ryan, why do you say that Cruz has been pushed to a place that he doesn't believe?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, it doesn't seem to me like a serious national security strategy to just come out and say that we're going to patrol Muslim neighborhoods.

Was there any evidence in the United States that our Muslim community is anything like the problem that we're seeing in the Belgium, no. We've lived with Muslims in the United States in the post 9/11 world without any of the kind of problems that Europe is facing fortunately.

So, you know, unfortunately, there is a pretty serious anti-Muslim sentiment in the Republican Party right now and, you know, I can't help but think that that's what Cruz is doing here and it's a little bit of Donald Trump-like demagoguery.

I don't think -- as you pointed out to Hugh, I don't think any serious national security experts think the key to defeating ISIS or dealing with Islamic terrorism is, you know, racial profiling or some kind of extra constitutional monitoring of the American-Muslim community.

LEMON: Yeah.

LIZZA: It's just not any of -- none of the experts point to that as a solution.

LEMON: I wanted to -- Kayleigh, I want to bring you in here because General Michael Hayden, a former Director of the NSA and CIA said in a show time documentary, if some future president is going to decide to waterboard, he better bring his own bucket because he's going to have do it himself. Does Donald Trump realize that he -- if he's becomes the commander-in-chief, the military may refuse his orders?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. It is there within the bounce of the law and that's what Donald Trump said yesterday. He said, "Look, I'm open to waterboarding. First, we have to expand the law." And by that, he means doing exactly what the Bush administration did was to Biden (ph) memos where they elicited the fact that waterboarding is an enhanced interrogation not that it is not in fact torture.

So, what Donald Trump is doing is talking about engaging and enhance interrogation message within the bound of the law and quite frankly, Don, I think most people look at what happened yesterday. 31 people lost their lives and I think most people aren't afraid of inconvenient thing.

[23:10:06] Abdeslam one of the orchestrators of the Paris attacks that left 139 dead, most people aren't concerned with inconveniencing him with the pain of waterboarding if that means gaining valuable intelligence information. I don't think that's the first concern on people's minds. They want to make sure their family members don't end up dead.

LEMON: Bob, your reaction to that and to what both Cruz and Trump have been saying since the Brussels attack.

BOB BECKEL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, the waterboarding is now -- is illegal. It's a form of torture and it was decided after it was done that we had to do away with it as a form of enhanced interrogation.

But beyond that, I listened to Bratton today, the Police Commissioner of New York. It was very interesting. He said, you know, the idea that Ted Cruz is talking about going in and monitoring these neighborhoods, he says is insulting to me.

We have 2,000 Muslim police officers in New York. And the idea that, somehow, you would take in that and I think that you're exactly right, that it is not going to do anything. You're -- that's not where your problems are.

Now with Trump, I mean, Trump I think probably gets a little bit of a boost out of this because he says, "Don't let Muslims in until we've got this all worked out," whatever that means.

And I think that the American people really are frightened by this. And they're looking at it and say if it happen in Brussels, it could happen here. I don't think it quite that easy, but it is something that is a political issue in this presidential campaign. And Trump particularly comes out as being very, very strong on anti-Muslim.

LEMON: Yeah.

BECKEL: And I think that's horrible. I think it's exactly wrong.

LEMON: Yeah. There's a poll that says, regardless of who you support, which do you think would do the best job handling terrorism?

Now, this is from a CNN/ORC poll, February 24, 27, obviously before the attacks. Trump, 33 percent, Clinton, 30 percent, and then Sanders, 11 percent, then Cruz, 10, Kasich 4. So, that Trump is at the top list.

Hey, listen, we're going to -- there it is, right there. That's a poll where you can see at the top.

Don't go anywhere. When we come right back much more on the urgent manhunt for that terror suspect tonight. Plus, Trump v. Cruz. This time it's personal, really personal. Why the candidates are battling over their wives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:16:38] LEMON: As the manhunt in Belgium spreads for a suspected bomber still on the loose tonight. The state department is warning Americans about potential risks of traveling to Europe. And the candidates are battling over what they would do to stop ISIS.

Back with me now, Ryan Lizza, Kayleigh McEnany and Bob Beckel.

Ryan to you first. Hillary Clinton reacts to the Brussels attack today. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would also be a serious mistake to begin carpet bombing populated areas into oblivion proposing that it doesn't make you sound tough. It makes you sound like you're in over your head.

Slogans aren't a strategy. Loose cannons tend to misfire. What America needs is strong, smart, steady leadership to wage and win this struggle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So that was a hit on Ted Cruz and Trump. But if you look at this poll, and I'm pulled out just before the break, take a look at it again. It's CNN/ORC poll from just a few weeks ago. Americans are divided on who they think would best handle terror. I mean, mostly they said 33 percent for Donald Trump, right behind, 30 percent for Hillary Clinton. Does that surprise you, Ryan?

LIZZA: It does a little bit. I mean, you know, there was a guy named Bill Clinton who after the 2004 election when John Kerry lost to George W. Bush. He famously said that strong and wrong always beats weak and right.

And, you know, I think that's a good lesson in politics. And, you know, that is something that a candidate like Hillary Clinton will have to think about if she faces Donald Trump, is how do you deal with someone who is very good at sort of instinctual politics and understanding people's fears, even though when you look at the actual details of the policies, they don't add up to a whole lot.

LEMON: Bob, here's what Trump tweeted today in response to Hillary Clinton's speech and here's our read. He says, "Just watched Hillary deliver a prepackaged speech on terror, she's been in office fighting terror for 20 years and look where we are."

I mean Bob, you know, did Donald Trump actually point out one of Hillary's strengths in that tweet? I mean the fact that she has so much experienced as former first lady, a senator and a secretary of state?

BECKEL: Yeah. I certainly think he did. But, you know, one of the things here is that Trump has got an amazing ability to jump into these issues first and then he forms a debate and he got into Brussels first.

But, both he and Cruz are shameless in trying to scare the American people about all this and that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to make national security a domestic issue and blame the Muslims on it and I think that's way out of balance.

And when Hillary Clinton gets on a stage to debate either one of them, it's going to be -- I think she's going to show what experienced means in something like this. We're going to carpet bomb? What do you -- are you kidding me ...

LEMON: Kayleigh?

BECKEL: ... when you get turn every Muslim in the world against you?

LEMON: Kayleigh?

MCENANY: Yeah -- no, no, they're engaging in reality. What's happening -- you look at Europe. We are 10 years from becoming Europe. And I'd say that's probably being generous.

The "Associated Press" reported today, I assume we all trust the "A.P." here, very respected News Wire organization said there are 400 ISIS fighters in Europe or going into Europe. How did they get there? They got there because of Lax Immigration Policies. We have loose borders. We have people coming in who we don't who they are. The FBI has come out and said ISIS is in all 50 states. This is a reality and they're simply saying, we have to control our borders.

[23:20:05] That means shutting down all immigrations temporarily? So be it, because once the ISIS fighters are in, there's no way of getting them out. And Europe is in a very parallel situation right now. We aren't doing ourselves any favor by playing this politically correct game and not calling it what it is.

BECKEL: Well, was that politically correct when you talk about -- I mean, you can't compare Europe to the United States. This is a close borders and you've got Muslims coming across through Turkey. You've got all kinds of potential for these kinds of terrorists to get into Europe. That's not the same as the United States.

And now, if you want to say you want to go over and protect Europe with their allies, that's fine. But if I'm not mistaken, Donald Trump said neither was a waste of time but we're going to spending too much money on.

Where are these guys' fallacies? What would they do in Europe? That's what I want to know. I can't and I'm not heard a single day what they've said is basically, here's the bottom line, be afraid America, we're going to protect you, and we're going to monitor these people with these neighborhoods and not only that, we're not going to let any of your relatives going in the country. That's not a policy.

People are coming in to this country. ISIS is now in 50 states, Bob. That is a reality. It needs to change.

LEMON: Ryan is it fair to say that Barack Obama's policy on ISIS is failing?

LIZZA: Well, certainly, we haven't, you know, ISIS is been a festering problem for years now. I think everyone agrees that it's going to remain one for quite a while. So, it's not like he has solved the ISIS problem.

I think his view is you have to keep it into perspective, right and this is coming to under fire from a lot of people.

LEMON: Is that around about way of saying, "Yes, it is failing?"

LIZZA: I don't know if it is failing. I mean the question is what could he have -- what more could he do and what would the President Clinton or President Trump do that Obama hasn't tried that would truly destroy ISIS. I mean, unless you're willing to send 30,000 troops into the heart of the Middle East and uproot ISIS from the cities that they have taken over and then occupy those areas for as long as necessary so ISIS can't come back.

I don't see what the solutions are from any of the candidates that's really a whole lot different than Obama that I know you'd interested to see with Bob or Kayleigh can point to something that Obama hasn't done that one of other candidates is going to do to sort of magically solve the threat from ISIS.

LEMON: Bob, go ahead.

BECKEL: Short of that. I mean, the idea of putting troops on the ground in the Middle East is a non -- no-brainer for the American people right now. They still want to do it.

And I think that what Obama has done, look, 20,000 terrorists have been bombed to death in Yemen and in the Middle East and beyond that, they've lost territory in both Iraq and Syria, which they were at high point about six months ago and now they're losing territory.

So I think it's been effective. I don't think it's easy to say that you could do a whole lot differently unless as you say, Ryan, put troops on the ground and I would not want to be a president that suggested that 30,000 American soldiers should go to the Middle East again.

LEMON: And Kelly, I want to play something. I want to ask you about something that the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said today to a group of House interns. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN, (R-WI) HOUSE SPEAKER: There was a time that I would talk about a difference between makers and takers in our country referring to people who accepted government benefits. But as I spent more time listening, really learning the root causes of the poverty, I realized something. I realized that I was wrong.

Takers wasn't how to refer to a single mom stuck in a poverty trap trying to take care of her on family, most people don't want to be dependent. And to label a whole group of Americans that way was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Is that something that you would normally expect to hear from a conservative? What's your reaction, Kayleigh?

MCENANY: No, it's not something you would normally expect to hear from a conservative. But, it's so refreshing to hear the speaker talk this way.

You know, I think the biggest reason that Republicans lost the election last time around is because you had Mitt Romney come out and say 47 percent of the electorate is dependent on government benefits and they always will be as essentially what he said.

That's a problem and one of the things people really like about Donald Trump, why you see some blue collar workers come out and vote for him is because he says, "Hey, I want health care for all. Hey, I'm going to fix these trade deals."

He wants to change and expand the Republican platform and that means acknowledging first and foremost most Americans are hard workers and most Americans don't want government benefits. They just happen to be on them sure for some reasons.

LEMON: Ryan, is that - it's not something you expect to hear from a conservative. It is refreshing, correct?

LIZZA: Well, I think so as Kayleigh. I was just -- does Donald Trump really want health care for all? I mean, is that like a universal health care plan that his -- that you're endorsing there, Kayleigh?

[23:25:04] He just doesn't want people dying on the streets. I think that's a refreshing thing to hear from a Republican.

LIZZA: You know ...

LEMON: Bob, I'll give you the last word, quickly.

BECKEL: OK. I think this was a very important speech by Ryan because it does break the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. It is a challenge to the Tea Party.

He is saying now, "I was wrong." Most politicians don't ever say that. This is the Speaker of the House. He's a powerful guy. And I think your beginning to see Trump drawing out among non-Trump people in the Republican Party more compassion, more understanding and think that some of the things that Trump is doing here is going to kill their party and he will.

LIZZA: You know, the subject of that speech was very anti-Trump. I think most people will agree.

LEMON: I've got to go. Thank you very much. Ryan and Bob, you're going to stay with me. Kayleigh thanks. I should say, Kayleigh, you're going to stay with me.

Up next, all's fair in love and politics? Ted Cruz and Donald Trump go to war over their wives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: As if the war of words between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz isn't nasty enough. Now, they're battling about their wives, just their wives.

Kayleigh McEnany is back with me and joined by CNN Political Commentator, Tara Setmayer.

[23:30:00] OK, here we go. It's getting really personal between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The latest is over an ad that was created a conservative anti-Trump Super PAC that shows an old modeling photo of Melania Trump nude, but strategically covered. The ad says, "Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady. Or you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday". Melania is not a candidate, her husband is, is this even close to appropriate, Tara?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: In a normal election cycle, I would say no. But there's nothing normal about this election cycle and super PACs do this kind of things all the time. I mean, this is moderate in comparison to some other things that go on from super PACs, which have no affiliation with the official campaign.

So, the issue here is, well, they took an actual photo of her, this is real, she did this photo shoot back in 2000. God bless her, she looks great. But they took that, they turned it into a mean and said, "Hey, you know, this could be your possibly, your first lady, this -- are you comfortable with this?" You know, I think that given me the tenor of this campaign, that's mild and comparison to many of the things that Donald Trump has said and done.

LEMON: And you're saying that as a conservative?

SETMAYER: As a conservative.

LEMON: OK, we're not showing it because she is not the candidate here.

So, here's -- Kayleigh, this is for you. Trump fired back and this is what he twitted. He said, "Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife."

Kayleigh, what beans?

MCENANY: Yeah, you know, I expect him to act emotionally. I would expect anyone to defend their spouse fervently. But I do wish he would have state above the fray and not pulled Heidi into this because the way I see it is Melania Trump is a very respectable woman, speak sign languages, very well educated. Heidi Cruz, likewise, very smart lady, both of these women are model women, I would say. I look up to both of them for different reasons.

So, I hate that we've gotten to a point in this campaign where spouses are being gone after like this. They're not the candidate, and let's focus on the candidates and one another instead of their spouses.

LEMON: OK.

SETMAYER: We actually agree on that.

LEMON: But attention has been -- I mean, do you remember the last election like Obama's attention was paid to the now first lady?

SETMAYER: Oh, Michelle Obama, yeah.

LEMON: Michelle Obama, right.

SETMAYER: Sure.

LEMON: Right.

SETMAYER: It shouldn't have been, it shouldn't have been. I mean, they took -- you know, she said some things that concerned people and it became fair game.

LEMON: For the first time, I'm proud of my country and all of that.

SETMAYER: Yeah, the first, right, that and a couple other things, so.

LEMON: Yeah.

SETMAYER: But I think what's more instructive here is Donald Trump's reaction. The fact that that was his reaction that he lashes out, this is a pattern for him and this is something that people like me are very concerned about. You are supposed to be running for the presidency. You don't go and start threatening people's wives as a reaction to this.

He's got a women problem, I mean, the latest Reuters poll, he always likes to cite polls, right, Kayleigh? Well, in his Reuters poll, which is one of his favorite one, he -- over 50 percent of women have a very unfavorable view of Donald Trump. That's up from 40 percent in October, that's a major problem for him if he keeps going after women like he's got a history of it.

DEMON: Let me read Ted Cruz who was returning fire with his tweets. So, here's his tweet, he says, "Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought. #classless."

Does Cruz have any responsibility for this ad, I mean, it's an anti- Trump super PAC, but does he have any responsibility, to you Tara?

SETMAYER: The short answer is no.

MCENANY: He does, I think he should ...

SETMAYER: No, he doesn't, he has no responsible, he is not responsible for what super PACs do. They have no coordination. And this super PAC really is not sympathetic to Ted Cruz either.

LEMON: Yeah.

SETMAYER: They're more never Donald Trump than pro Ted Cruz, anyway.

LEMON: Kayleigh, go ahead.

MCENANY: I think if you want to elevate the rhetoric and get past this, I think it's time for both of them to come out and stop this. And I think Ted Cruz should say, "Look, that is completely unfair to go after Melania in this way." I put the onus on Ted to elevate the dialogue. And likewise, on Trump to say to not engage on these attacks. But I do think Ted Cruz needs to come out and disown this, because it is despicable to pull her into this. She's a respectable lady and it's just unfair.

SETMAYER: And -- but Ted Cruz doesn't have a history of this. He doesn't have a history of calling women fat pigs and ...

LEMON: OK.

SETMAYER: ... sending articles to women that write, you know, critical things about him, which he did to Gail Collins in New York Times sending her pictures of her face, circling it, calling her like the face of a dog.

I mean, Donald Trump, your candidate, has done these things. So this is a pattern for him. This is nothing new, this is not one isolated incident. He didn't just get emotional all of a sudden one time. He has a 30-year pattern of this kind of sexism against women and lashing out against women when he doesn't get his way.

So, you're going to have a tough time defending this if, God forbid, he's our nominee in the general. Do you think Hillary Clinton is going to let us kind of stuff go? This is mild a comparison to what's going to happen to him in the general.

What's he going to do then, writing her with nukes like he'd want to do overseas?

MCENANY: I think -- well, the unfortunate part, Tara, is that voters disagree with you because when you look at the various states that have voted, Trump has won most of the women vote in most of the states.

SETMAYER: In the Republican primary.

MCENANY: So, most women realize he's not a misogynist. I think they look at his daughter, his beautiful daughter, who's a huge part of his company, all the women ...

(CROSSTALK)

MCENANY: ... and they look at that and they say, "This guy is not a misogynist."

SETMAYER: OK, well, that will be decided.

[23:35:00] LEMON: Can I just play this? I want to play this, this is Heidi Cruz today. She -- here, she said, "People always know the truth and they weren't going to go to Donald Trump's level", at least her campaigning, she and her husband. Well, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEIDI CRUZ, TED CRUZ'S WIFE: This campaign is about a positive, optimistic agenda for this country. As you may know by now, there are a lot of things that Donald Trump and his campaign say that have no basis in reality.

So, we're going to keep focusing on our positive optimistic message. And because I know what Ted stands for and what we stand for as a couple, where our family stands for, and we also know what voters care about. They care about what we will do for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That's a strong statement from Heidi Cruz.

SETMAYER: She's a class ...

LEMON: You can't deny that.

SETMAYER: She's a class act, unlike Donald Trump, which is why Ted Cruz reacted the way he did.

I mean, look, again, Donald Trump has a pattern of this. Megyn Kelly, his very bizarre obsession with her, calling her a sicko, calling her a whack job, and a low-rate journalist, a bimbo.

He's done this repeatedly. So, you know, we can say that he's won women in Republican primaries with -- in a very small subset here, but in a general election, he is negative to 33 points, in favorable, unfavorable, underwater with women. That is the latest polling averaging.

So, he's got a female problem moving forward. And that's one of his weakest areas at his campaign.

LEMON: All right. So, but, listen, they're not the only two engaging in this because the last Senate Republican dinner in Washington, Mitt Romney took a dig at Trump. He reportedly joked that Donald Trump has had several foreign wives.

It turns out that there really are jobs Americans won't do. I mean, even Mitt Romney is getting into these fights. What do you think of that, Kayleigh?

MCENANY: Yeah. It's befuddling, Don, you know, that we're at the point where there's a Republican nominee who's fighting more fervently against a fellow Republican, Donald Trump, than he ever did against Barack Obama.

And likewise, his super -- not Romney super PAC but some of his operative to a running Super PACs but some of his operatives who are running super PACs were actually trailing Republican congressman and senators who support Donald Trump in an effort to get sound bites from them. He used against them in a general election. I mean, we've gone to this point where Republicans are trying to take out other Republicans. It's just unfortunate. And Mitt Romney has lost all credibility in the eyes of many, many Republicans. It's completely unbecoming of him to react in this way.

LEMON: Last word. Thank you very much. I appreciate both of you.

Coming up, the latest on the manhunt for an escaped terrorist, were there missed opportunities to stop this deadly terror attack.

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[23:41:19] LEMON: Our breaking news, the urgent manhunt for at least one escaped terrorist as the State Department warns Americans about travel anywhere in Europe. Joining me now is Juliette Kayyem, CNN National Security Analyst and Former CIA Analyst Buck Sexton.

Juliette, to you first, as two brothers, Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, both suicide bombers, both are dead, one at the airport, the other in -- at the metro station. The fact that they were brothers, what does that tell you?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: They're always brothers, I mean, when we first met, the Boston marathon (ph) ...

LEMON: Right.

KAYYEM: ... it is an intimacy of relationship, they have the same experience growing up as we saw with the Tsarnaev brothers, a sense of isolation, the parents had abandoned them. And they won't turn on each other.

And so, it will be very -- it's not surprising that that intimacy of, you know, planning the terrorist attack and then being willing to commit suicide in the process would be amongst close relationships. And, it's not unfamiliar in the history of terrorism.

LEMON: The question is why were they at large, Buck, because Interpol had a red notice out on Khalid El Bakraoui. He was wanted as a suspected terrorist and Turkey deported Ibrahim to Belgium last year, flagging him as a potential terrorist as well. So, why were they still at large?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There are a couple of reasons why law enforcement and intelligence agencies may not -- first of all, they may just not have known -- they may not have been able to find these guys in time. But also, they could have been following them to try to get additional leads. That's a very difficult game to play unfortunately, because you can -- it can end in tragedy.

Sometimes, they'll want to see who their contacts are. You know, once you know that somebody is in the Jihadi pipeline or has Jihadi's inclinations, anybody that they're talking to, anybody they're involved with becomes a part of that investigation. And so, if you're trying to find out who the rest of a cell is, for example, you may not move on the individual right away.

There's also the problem of, do you have enough to charge a person? Do you have enough to actually take any legal action against them, in the case of the U.S.? I know how these cases go, I worked on many of these cases. You actually have to make sure that you have the goods on somebody and that can be tough when you have someone just saying, "I want to go to Syria to engage in Jihad", that's not necessarily criminal, they have to take an act. There has to be a step beyond that. And then, of course, there's just the old possibility of incompetence

here which I think is we've got -- unfortunately, we've seen a lot of that with the security services in Europe recently.

LEMON: The folks that we've had on earlier say that at this point too that this, you know, the timeline was sped up, right? Because the bomb maker ...

KAYYEM: Yeah, yeah.

LEMON: ... right, the bomb maker Najim Laachraoui, it is said ...

KAYYEM: Yeah.

LEMON: ... you know, that he was in the airport. He's believed to be the bomb maker. They don't use this in the bomb makers in to be sacrificial, right?

KAYYEM: Yeah. I think ...

LEMON: They usually go and survey and then leave.

KAYYEM: I think this is significant, and I know people are debating. And so, first of all, he is a significant enough bomb maker that he was protected, if it's him, let's just be clear.

LEMON: Right.

KAYYEM: He was protected after Paris and invested with the resources to plan another attack. So he's not just some guy.

Most terrorist organizations divide up their like corporations. There's going to be a financial wing. There's going to be the soldiers are willing to commit suicide. There's going to be the leaders and there's going to be the tech guys and then there's the cyber guys, right?

The guys who can make bombs are more limited in numbers. So I view this as a -- if it's him, as a significant moment in terms of disruption and also as significant because you never want the bomb maker to die because he has such a unique skill. There might be others behind him, but I still think this is a good -- at least some good news coming out of a horrible week.

SEXTON: This is very significant at this point about how you have sort of different skill sets even among a terrorist cell and they will allocate them, different individuals have different task. That's why the Islamic State which is operating, as we know, training camps. It's operating and trying to create tradecraft and trying tradecraft to people to go back into Europe.

[23:45:05] They become essentially forced multipliers once they're back on European soil. They can show the people who maybe have radicalized emotionally and psychologically but don't have the skill sets to evade -- or to evade the police, to understand clandestine communications to make sure they know counter surveillance, counterintelligence measures. That's the kind of stuff that ISIS has free reign to teach people.

And so even if only, let's say, 300 or 400 and we see these different estimates now come back from Syria, they can get enmesh into the Jihadi communities that already exist in Europe and teach them essentially how to be much more effective. This is really the difference, by the way, between a lone wolf terror attack a lot of the time and a mass casualty attack, like what we've seen in Brussels.

LEMON: OK. I want to ask you this, Juliette, because Laachraoui and Ibrahim El Bakraoui are both the two men that's seen in here and they're in black. But what about -- there's this guy that's in the white jacket right here, what do we know about him?

KAYYEM: Well, we know he's -- at least from what the officials are saying that he had the largest suitcase of the three of them and abandoned it. Either he abandoned it because it didn't work and we do -- most people believe that this was sped up, that this attack was sped up after the arrest last Friday. And it didn't work, but there a lot of cases in which at the last moment, a bomber decides he's not going to go down and commit suicide.

It appears, you know, from the taxi cab ride and what we know about how they got to the airport that they did not have a plan to leave the airport. In other words, they believe that they would all die there. So he may not have a plan to hide and that will make it easier for officials to find him. But the notion that this terror and that this case get solved if we find the guy in the hat is ridiculous. It's just much bigger.

LEMON: Yeah, everyone just -- people just want to know, like, who is the other guy.

KAYYEM: The guy in the hat, yeah.

LEMON: What happened with the other guy, the guy in the hat?

All right, Juliette and Buck, stay with me. When we come right back, how a terror cell could hide in plain sight and why Brussels is such a hot spot.

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[23:50:46] LEMON: The manhunt for an escaped terrorist suspect spreads U.S. Intelligence officials say they are not surprised that Brussels was attacked. Back with me now, Juliette Kayyem and Buck Sexton.

OK. So, Buck, are Belgian security forces up to the task of keeping their country safe?

SEXTON: I don't know if any security forces in Europe right now are going to be up to the task because, Don, when you look at the number of returnees from Syria right now and its estimates, by the way. Keep in mind, this is what the -- these are the people the government thinks have gone there and probably have come back. It's at least in the high hundreds, it's probably in the low thousands to do continuous surveillance on any of those individuals, especially if you can't criminally charge them for joining a terrorist group in Syria, it's a huge endeavor. There's a lot of resources, a lot of personnel that -- and that's for one guy. And then you got thousands spread across all of Europe.

The fact of the matter is, it's really just a question of when. When you look at Germany, for example, bringing in close to a million migrants over the last 12 months or so, something along those lines. Even if there's four or five ISIS fighters and who knows how many we don't know, if they are trained in hardened cell, they're going to be able to strike in Germany, unless the Germans get lucky. I think Germany is very high on the threat metrics right now, and ISIS has said they're going to hit the U.K. So it's an incredibly difficult problem because of the size of the problem.

LEMON: Juliette, you feel a certain kind of a way of how Belgian officials handled this, don't you?

KAYYEM: Well, what surprises me, could they have stopped it and some of the problems with stopping the terrorist attacks. A lot of us spend a lot of time thinking about what, "Well, what happens if there's a terrorist attack?", right, because you're not going to stop all of them.

And most of the training has been if a place is targeted of mass transit like an airport, one, you assume there are other attacks, as we saw in Paris, as we saw in 9/11, and two, you close down the systems.

What I can't believe that someone in Homeland Security and on the response side is, the hour gap between a massive attack in an airport and a transit system is still allowed to continue. That would not happen in most urban but they just shut down if something happens, and that's what I'm very curious about what their training is like.

LEMON: Could the U.S. and Europe have been done more to beef up security, Belgian security?

SEXTON: You can always do more but you're trying to put your resources in the right place at the right time. You're essentially hoping that security services get lucky every time because even if they have a 90 percent success rate in disrupting cells, you look at, for example, plots against the city of New York. You're talking about maybe 15 to 20 over the last 10 years or so, something along those lines. We've stopped all of those but all it takes is one to go through and now you've got a massive problem because you have a mass casualty attack.

I don't know if the Europeans could have stopped this in the sense that even if they had stopped this one, there's going to be another one and I think that's the problem that they're facing now. And that's why the political leadership across Europe has this more or less blank look on their faces right now. How are we going to handle this thing? And specifically, in the case of Brussels, yes, it's a Jihadi-Salafist as we know. They also have some problems with their laws. They had a no-nighttime

raid law on the books, which prevented even terrorism raids, national security raids. And I think it was 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., essentially because it's rude and not a nice thing to do and I'm being completely serious. That was the law. They've tried to address it since then.

So, you're going to see changes in legal, surveillance and intelligence agency posture, I think, across Europe, particularly in places that have had large migrant flows from the Muslim world.

LEMON: And what you wrote today on CNN.com, right? You wrote an article and you sort of compared the U.S., and -- but basically just saying open societies, right?

KAYYEM: Yeah.

LEMON: Open societies like the U.S. You said, open societies that rely on the flow of people and goods that are plugged into a global market and engaged with the world can't possibly harden every place where people gather. As a result, they are constantly balancing the need for counter-terrorism efforts against the freedom of movement. It's impossible to -- we would be a different society.

KAYYEM: We -- first of all, you're never going to get there ...

LEMON: Yeah.

KAYYEM: .. because it just -- it won't happen. And the reason why it won't happen isn't because of lack of resources or lack of political will. The American public would not accept it, right?

If I told you that to get down to your apartment in Downtown Manhattan, you would have to go through a security line to get on the subway, that would increase it by -- you commute by two hours, you wouldn't accept it, you move out of the city, you would do something different.

So, part of what we have to do in this day and age, given the threat we face, is accept a level of risk that we're never going to get rid of.

[23:55:10] We can minimize the risk. We can maximize our defenses. But part of what resiliency is about is actually saying, "Look, we've also chosen vulnerability." Not to forgive Europe, not to say that they couldn't have seen this coming in many respects, but also to remind us that resiliency is something we can work with.

LEMON: I'll give you the last word quickly.

SEXTON: Yeah. Liberty is a vulnerability. And if you're going to live in a free society, terrorists are going to have the opportunity to strike. And we shouldn't change our posture entirely as countries, as peoples because of this. And I just hope that right that now, the cooperation between the U.S. agencies and the European agencies is strong enough to prevent the next big attack. Because there is a big attack being planned right now and it will kill a lot of people unless we manage to stop it.

LEMON: Thank you both ...

KAYYEM: Thank you.

LEMON: ... very much.

SEXTON: Thank you.

LEMON: That is it for us tonight. Thank you for watching. Our live coverage continues in just a moment with Max Foster in Belgium.